ilanbenb/StarshipPresentation

## StarshipPresentation
it's quite windy here its side down well
though I good it's it's this is oh
actually wasn't expected to be this
windy hopefully you can actually hear
what I'm saying okay great great
so this is this is I think the most
inspiring thing that I have ever seen
and I just like to thank the SpaceX team
and the the suppliers and the the people
of Brook chic and Brownsville thank you
for your support and just like wow what
an incredible job by such a great team
to build this incredible vehicle so it's
like first of all want to stop that I'm
just so so so so proud to work with such
a great team and it's really ripping
here by the way if you're watching this
online it is like it was really windy so
the the point of this this presentation
and this is this event it is really
there are two elements to it one is to
inspire the public and get people
excited about our future in space and
and get people fired up about the future
the you know what what there are so many
things to worry about so many things to
be concerned about there's there are
many troubles in the world of course and
we are important and we need to solve
them but we also need things that make
us excited to be alive that make us glad
to wake up in the morning and be fired
up about the future and think yeah the
future is gonna be great
you know and and this space exploration
is one of those things and becoming a
spacefaring civilization being out there
among the stars this is one of the
things that I know makes it makes me
glad to be alive I think it makes many
people glad to be alive it's one of the
best things and this really weird face with a
choice which future do you want do you
want the future where we become a
spacefaring civilization and are in many
worlds and now out there among the stars
or one where we are forever confined to
earth and I say it is the first and I
hope you agree with me yeah so so what
what the critical breakthrough that's
needed for us to become a spacefaring
civilization is to make space travel
like air travel so with with air travel
you could be when you fly a plane you
fly that plane many times I mean the
risk of stating the obvious it really
almost any motor transport whether it's
a plane a car a horse the bicycle is
reusable you use that motor transport
many times and if you had to get a new
plane every time you flew somewhere and
even get have two planes for a return
journey very few people could afford to
fly or if you could use a car only once
very few people could afford to drive a
car so the critical breakthrough that's
necessary is a rapidly reusable orbital
rocket this is what this is basically
the holy grail of space and the
fundamental thing that's required and it
is a very hard thing to do it's only
barely possible with with the physics of
of Earth I mean if gravity first gravity
was a little heavier it would be it
would be impossible and if the Earth's
gravity was a little lighter it would be
quite easy so we're really right on the
cusp of what is physically possible so
you know in order to create a rapidly
reusable rocket and fully reusable over
a rocket you have to have engines that
are have incredibly high specific
impulse that have that essentially are
extremely efficient you have a structure
that is also incredibly mass efficient
and and then that all needs to come back
to the launchpad and be able to be
refilled with propellants and flown
again very quickly just like an aircraft
so it's just it's just because of the
physics of of earth being having being
quite a deep gravity well and having
quite a thick atmosphere this is this is
a a vert as this is a tough but not
impossible thing but it is the most
fundamental thing so with SpaceX we we
started out 17 years ago and the first
rocket we designed was the the Falcon
one which was that guy right there
dragged off
state separation your separation
confirmed so so Falcon one we thought I
mean we started off we were very naive
and in fact the reason I should say the
reason it's September 28th was of terror
this is the 11th anniversary of the
first time SpaceX reached orbit so 11
years ago today SpaceX made overt for the first time and
it it was actually out it was our fourth
launch and if we if that launch had not
succeeded a SpaceX that would have been
the end of SpaceX that was all I'd run
out of money they would know there are
no more investors and and that would
have been it so if that fourth launch
had not succeeded that would have been curtains but
fortunately fate smiled on us that day
and we made it to of it I've great
respect for anyone who makes it to orbit
that's a hard thing and then we were
very naive obviously very much money
about naive on on many levels back back
then because we did actually try to
recover the first stage so the first
stage had a parachute on it and and we
okay we'll just pop the parachute when
it comes back into the atmosphere and
then it'll land somewhere in the ocean
we'll go fish it out of the ocean with a
boat this is not this does not work so
and I actually remember getting mad at
the parachute supplier like yeah your
parachute didn't work like now wasn't
their fault when the rocket comes in
from from space it's coming in the first
stage is coming in like you know Mach 10
to 12 and it hits the atmosphere like
it's a concrete wall and boom so you
actually have to orient the rocket
carefully you have to have aerodynamic
surfaces you have to do
an entry burn to slow it down you got
then you've got a guided through the
atmosphere and then your propulsive
landing this took us many many attempts
and we actually did like a video of a
blooper reel of all the times we failed
which was a line I think it might have
taken us like 14 attempts or something
before we finally successfully landed
the rocket so so we're gone to the next
slide you can take a look at this is
grasshopper this is the that's actually
Falcon 9 it's hard to tell the scale but
that's that's a falcon 9 size booster
with one engine and and big legs with
giant shock absorbers we don't know what
the heck we're doing now amazingly
grasshopper
haha the cows are confused
yeah so the that was a so that they have
Falcon one what you saw there was a
Falcon 9 size vehicle and and then
what's really kind of hard to grasp at a
visceral level is that this giant ship
will do the same thing that grasshopper
did so this is this thing is going to
take off fly to 65,000 feet about 20
kilometers and come back and land in
about one to two months so that giant
thing it's really going to be pretty
epic to see that thing take off and come
back and then hopefully yeah
yeah as well so now I there's this is a
quite radical I'll talk about it later
their presentation is this is a quite
quite a new approach to controlling
controlling a rocket much work into a
skydiver than a plane but I'll talk
about that later so going from from
Falcon Falcon 9 to talk and heavy which
we launched actually the first vulture
punkin heavy was only February of last
year so it's only been about a year and
a half since the first Bell can have you
launched when we did two side-by-side
booster landings and I was like this
video that was done by my friend Jonah
it's a god-awful smaller bear
to the goal of the massiere but tamami
is yelling no
and the daddy is chosen to go but a
friend is nowhere to be seen now she
walks through the Sun country
to the seat with the clearest view
and she's look to the silver screen but
the bill is a sad thing for but she's
missed it 10 times oh my
she could speak to me I suppose but they
No
mr. live on my
I never thought that would happen
actually that that it did yeah
that's my like the the you know some
people were like why why why do we have
the roadster with the astronauts you
know storm and and I was actually just
came from discussion of my friend Jonas
I where's the kitchen and I was like you
know normally when they do a rocket
launch they launch a rocket concrete but
that sounds doesn't sound very inspiring
so what do you think the most is if what
you doing the most sort of fun thing is
that we could launch and he was like
what are you sir Tesla and that's a
great idea yeah and they're not friends
she said why don't you put a tiny Tesla
on the dashboard so we put a tiny
treasure on the dashboard with a tiny
storm and in the tiny chairs well this
is just to confuse the aliens in the
future so yeah you know just weren't
something I capture the imagination get
people excited about space so let's see
you starship so this is what you can
really see it right there obviously
there's a picture or a rendering it's
about 150 about 550 meters so you know
but sort of 165 feet or so and yeah so
this trip I think actually I noticed we
have an error in our ship dry mass here
my apologies I wish it was 85 tonnes the
ship prime has to be approximately 120
tonnes but this the the initial Mach 1
prototype is closer to 200 tons and the
in series production I think it'll
probably be about 120 tons if we get
really lucky it might get down to
110 99 would be super epic so but in
terms of its usefulness it'll be able to
do about 150 tons with full reusability
to orbit and back so this is this is a
very you know big number for full
reusability the the the very initial
versions we're confident we'll do over
100 tons but I think we've basically a
path to 150 tons and the the cost of a
fully reusable system is basically the
cost of the propellant which is mostly
oxygen this is through three and a half
tons of oxygen oxygen for every one ton
of fuel so one of the advantages of the
of this architecture over the Falcon
architecture is that we actually use
more oxygen per unit of fuel rather than
less so Merlin or the the the Falcon
architecture is about two and a half
tons oxygen for every one ton of fuel
this is three and a half tons of oxygen
for every one ton of fuel so when this
ascends it's really mostly liquid oxygen
because when you get to vacuum there's
no air basically so yeah the next line
um earlier I was talking about how
starship enters and how its controlled
it's it's really it's quite different
from anything else it's really falling
and so we're doing a controlled fall so
with a rocket you're actually trying to
break as opposed to you're trying to
create drag instead of lift it's really
the opposite of an aircraft you want the
most amount of drag that you can produce
and you want some lift especially when
you're in the upper atmosphere most
leases that you don't you can control
the maximum heating rate you want enough
lift to keep yourself high in the the
low density portion of the atmosphere so
you can you can you can burn off
velocity
and and then you say you won't and and
but but then you know basically it goes
like if this is the this is the earth it
goes it goes at about a 60 degree my
hand is rugged it's going at about sixty
degrees or so when twin in orbit you're
actually going at around 25 times the
speed of sound horizontal to the ground
so this is a very important concept that
is counterintuitive to our normal daily
life being in orbit being in zero-g is
not about altitude it's about velocity
how fast are you going
horizontally so when something's in
orbit it's zooming around the earth so
fast that the outward acceleration
outward radial acceleration is equal to
the inward acceleration of gravity and
then you have zero gravity this is why
you actually have zero gravity the space
station people often think the space
station is stationary but it's actually
going around the world at 25 times the
speed of sound or about 17,000 miles an
hour
they look it always looks stationary in
the pictures and since there's no error
you don't have to have a an aerodynamic
structure so you can be a totally crazy
structure that doesn't look like you
should be able to go 25 times the speed
of sound but it does and you can only
feel acceleration you can't feel
velocity so people sometimes like to
wonder what does it feel like to go 25
times speed of sound actually it feels
like nothing only accelerating to there
feels like something so so that so the
starship is coming in this is the this
platform is the earth it's coming in at
hypersonic velocity like this sort of
around a 60 degree angle so it comes
like this and then starts falling and
then just falls like a skydiver and it's
just controlling itself and then it
turns and Lance like that
incredibly elaborate explanation and
then you can get a sense for you this is
much better
there you go but it'll look totally nuts
to see that thing laughs yeah crazy Wow
cool so let's see - Matt the Raptor
engine so there's the ship we'll have a
total of six engines three of the
c-level variety of Raptor and those are
actually on the rocket right now so we
have the three EC level in fact that's a
picture of just inside that skirt that's
what it looks like so we've got the
three sea level Raptor engines and they
take gimbal which is which means that
the whole engine moves so the weight of
rocket steers is by moving the entire
engine so whereas an aircraft engine is
static and you move by moving like the
control surfaces like the airlock
ailerons and rudder and elevator and
flaps this in this the rocket ship when
the engines are powered you move the
entire engine to steer it but so the
starship will have three c-level engines
that move up to about 15 degrees angle
and three vacuum engines that are
optimized for efficiency that will be
that will not move so there will be just
fixed in place and that allows us to
have the biggest Bell nozzle for the for
the Raptor before the for the vacuum
Raptor engines and aspirationally the
the target is a 380 second ISP for the
vacuum engine this is a very sort of
space geek terms this is like a really a
great number and and even for the estilo
engines to get over 350 second ISP is
also really great so
actually sorry I'm looking at the slide
you're not so that's what I meant by it
books like that on the inside and try to
get back on assignment that's the that's
the inside of the starship right now so
that's what it looks like in the base
all right and then heat shield so it
we've gone through various iterations of
heat shield there's a lot of ways to
skin the cat here the ultimately recited
to have heat shield hexagonal tiles
ceramic tiles that are basically like a
tiny glass vermicelli about a micro
structure level it's a very very light
but but but very crack resistant
essentially a glass tiles and they are
you we could because the starship is a
steel construction like at first it
feels like oats deal is that mean it's
heavy no actually it's the lightest
construction this is steel is the best
thing is the I think the best thing
about best design decision on this whole
thing is a 301 stainless steel because
at cryogenic temperatures a 301
stainless actually has about the same
effective strength as an advanced
composite or aluminum lithium
unlike most Steel's which get brittle at
low temperature a 301 stainless gets
much stronger and if it's in the in the
in the in the extra hot condition
meaning it's cold roll to extra heart
condition it also gets way stronger so
it gets its actually gets its it
strength to weight ratio at cryogenic
temperatures is equivalent or even have
slightly better then then advanced
composites or aluminum lithium this is
this is not well appreciated because if
you just look at the materials manual
and say like what what is the strength
of stainless steel its it looks much
weaker than is you say what is the
strength at cryogenic temperature Oh
much much stronger
you know at very low temperature almost
twice as strong that's when it becomes
better than then carbon fiber or school
or alumina lithium and this is another
benefit it also has a high melting
temperature so for a reusable ship
you're coming in like a meteor you want
something that does not melt at a low
temperature you want something else at a
high temperature and this is where steel
is extremely good as well so it's you
know steel has a melting temperature
around sort of 1500 degrees centigrade
whereas aluminum you you know maybe 300
or 400 degrees and same thing for carbon
fiber and that's really pushing it
you know you so this is how having that
much high melting temperature means that
you don't need any shielding on the the
leeward side of there of the ship when
it comes in for entry and and the
fielding you need on the windward side
the hot side is massively reduced
because the the thickness of the tile is
actually for a reusable system is
dependent on what backshell temperature
like how hot does the back of the tile
that interfaces with the airframe gets
and because the steel can take a much
higher temperature your your heat shield
even on the windward side as much it is
much lighter but the net effect is that
a 301 stainless steel rocket is actually
the lightest possible reusable
architecture then then it comes to come
to cost the their carbon fiber we were
using was a hundred and thirty dollars a
time the steel is $2,500 a time it's 32
- yeah 25 say the $130,000 a time versus
$2,500 town every source person so if
it's one hundred and thirty thousand
dollars a ton for the carbon fiber and
$2,500 a ton for the steel so this deal
is about two percent of the costs of the
carbon fiber
so this is a good thing we changed from
corn fiber steel by far and and very
easy to weld stainless steel the
evidence being that we welded it
outdoors without a factory so great
skills by the team but with with carbon
fiber this is impossible
with aluminum lithium also impossible
but steel is very easy to weld and it is
resilient to the elements and also
actually as Torsten earlier say like on
mars you can like cut that up you can
weld it you can modify it no problem
yeah that's a good point
you're out there on the moon or mars you
you want something that you can modify
that you can cut up and use for other
things that's like for sure great thing
so anyway steel obviously I'm in love to
steal you know it's time I had to say it
you know so great so let's see going
onto the booster
so the the booster is designed to take
up to 37 rafter engines I'm not sure if
we go that high but you can really you
know have a 31 I think like the minimum
number you'd want is you know maybe
around 24
but the booster is designed to be able
to take multiple engines out so you can
actually add or subtract engines as
you'd like you just need a lot of force
pushing up over time I think the product
you probably want around a 7500 ton
force rocket which is about twice the
thrust of a Saturn 5 a little more than
twice as thrust and and on a roughly
5000 ton lift lift off gross little mass
so for roughly one-and-a-half
thrust-to-weight for a reusable rocket
you actually want a high
thrust-to-weight rather than it with an
expendable rocket where you want a low
thrust to weight because any thrust away
below 1 is not useful like if you if you
if you have a less thrust than your
weight you don't move so you actually
want to high thrust-to-weight for a
reusable rocket this is a very important
design optimization change so that's why
I think you know more engine is probably
good and getting up to around 7,500 tons
over time and why don't have two one one
and a half thrust to weight ratio that
one more so and we think we're probably
going to adjust the griffin design to be
kind of like a work like a diamond shape
it looks cooler and it works better too
and then the the rear fins are actually
just legs so they're not they don't need
needed for stabilization or guidance
they're they're essentially there for
four legs alright so some let's go into
some of the development testing
this is a raptor firing
all right and then obviously we had a
raptor a fire on the star hopper yeah
it's kind of hard to see skin to
appreciate scale but it's the same
diameter as starship and obviously it's
just right over there
so it's kind of hard to tell if it's the
size of a trash can or you know how big
it is but it's it's a it's about the
body diameter is about 39 meters or 30
feet not including the leg span
this gives you a sense of size so the
little pixels there and that's a little
little pixels or a human and then this
the hopper next to it the Millennium
Falcon for comparison then starship
which is what you see before you and
then that's what it's look will look
like with the full stack which is almost
two and a half times as tall as this
vehicle this simulation will give you a
sense of the scale of things
slightly reminds me of the scene from
spaceball
bottle refilling is extremely important
for getting some awesome getting food
it's supposed to happen she gets it e27
establish video on the moon Eliza misses
final step
to Mars
so yeah so they're a rapidly reusable
over the launcher a rocket is a rapidly
reusable rocket is required for
liberation before achieved if we're
getting a breakthrough in cost of access
to space that you don't throw the
Rockets away every every flight but an
another key step is refilling on-orbit
so that the starship can get to orbit
with let's say a hundred and fifty tons
of payload for the Moon or Mars or
beyond and then it can get tankard to
fill up its propellant tanks and so they
could it can depart from low-earth orbit
with 1200 tons of propellant this is a
very big thing so that you're your Delta
velocity is enough to transport 150 350
tons to the surface of the Moon or Mars
with with full reusability and orbital
refilling which is essentially the
overall refilling is actually a
simplified version of what SpaceX does
in or in docking with the space station
so it's actually harder to dock with the
space station than it is to do orbital
refilling but in practicing in talking
with the space station the SpaceX has
also learned how to rendezvous and dock
in orbit in a complex environment so
this is one of the other critical pieces
of the puzzle needed needed to establish
a base on the moon Mars city ultimately
and yeah those are the critical
ingredients so we think would be very
exciting to have a base on the moon even
if it's just a science base that you
know we have to accrue at for example we
have a base at and Antarctica many many
countries have bases in Antartica for
science research and this would be an
incredible area of research so whether
or not people want to live on the moon
there's definitely a lot of science to
be done and I think this is close as
well so that's that would be quite
exciting to do and then of course we can
go other to other places in the solar
system like Saturn and but the critical
thing that we need to focus on I think
is the fastest path to a self-sustaining
City on Mars this is the this is the
fundamental thing
as far as we know as far as we know we
are the only consciousness or the only
life that's out there there might be
other life but we've seen no signs of it
if people often ask me if you what are
you what do you know about the aliens on
that you know I'm like man I tell you if
I'm pretty sure I know you know if
aliens I have not seen any sign of
aliens and so is the military hiding
aliens in area 51 or something you know
that's a popular meme yeah well let me
tell you the biggest the fastest way to
increase defense funding would be to
bring out like hey we found an alien
you're like more money for defense
definitely guaranteed they're out that
would be like on display in two seconds
so yeah so there the reality is as far
as we know this is the only place at
least in this part of the galaxy or in
the Milky Way where there is
consciousness and it's taken a long time
for us to get to this point you know
according to the the geological records
that's been around for about
four-and-a-half billion years well there
was mostly molten magma for about half a
billion years so but still several
billion years with at least bacterial
life and multicellular life for several
hundred million years but here's the
interesting part like the the Sun is
gradually getting hotter and bigger and
over time even in the absence of global
warming man-made stuff the the Sun will
expand and will it will overheat the
earth my guess is probably this is on
human timescales this is a long time but
it's that there's only you know several
hundred million years left that's all
that's all we got okay several hundred
million years
but it sort of in if from an
evolutionary standpoint basically if it
took an extra 10% longer for conscious
life to evolve on earth
it wouldn't evolve at all because it
would have been incinerated by the Sun
so so what I'm saying is that it appears
that consciousness is a very rare and
precious thing and we should take
whatever steps we can to preserve the
light of consciousness and the window
the window has been open only now after
four and a half billion years is that
window open as there's a long time to
wait and it might not stay open for long
I'm pretty optimistic by Nature but
there's some chance there's some chance
that window will not be open for long
and I think we should become a multi
planet civilization while that window is
open and if we do I think the probable
outcome for Earth is even better if
because then you know Mars could help
earth one day you know and so I think we
should really do our very best to become
a multi-planet species and to extend
consciousness beyond Earth and we should
do it now thank you
ladies and gentlemen we'll be commencing
a QA session in just five minutes so
please hang hang out and hang tight
once again ladies and gentlemen please
sit tight we're going to be doing a Q&A
session with Elon in just five minutes
please stick around
oh yeah any questions yeah hi hi Neal on
Irene Klotz with aviation we can you
hear any yep um thank you for the
overview can you tell us a little bit
more details about the flight test
program for this and the mark -
absolutely
just turn the music off I can't quite
hear because of this music playing oh no
I'm sorry
trouble you say it again yes thank you
um can you talk a little bit more
details about the flight test program
for both this mark 1 and the mark 2
vehicle in Florida and what the
progression is to get to orbital flight
and then a test flight or a commercial
mission with the full vehicle sure so
with any development into uncharted
territory it is difficult to predict
these things with precision but I do
think things are going to move very fast
so our plan is in basically one to two
months to do the the 20 kilometer or 65
foot flight with starship Mach 1
our next flight after that might
actually just be all the way to orbit
with a booster and the ship most this is
I'm giving you just literally stream of
consciousness here most likely most
likely we would not fly to over it with
Mach 1 but we would fight over it with
Mach 3 which we built after Mach one
right here in fact we'll start building
it in about a month so yeah and actually
so sorry to say this mid question but I
did want to make sure to thank you suck
umezawa for his great support yeah he's
awesome
you start 2020 that's his handle that's
great handle anyway he's a super cool
dude and he's like you know we're
putting a lot of serious resources to
helping out starship so I want to thank
him very much for that the okay so yeah
just to frame things we are going to be
building ships and boosters at both Boca
and the Cape as fast as we can and and
and each successive yet absolutely I
mean it's gonna be really nutty to see a
bunch of these things I mean not just
one but a whole stack of them and we're
improving both the design and the
manufacturing method exponentially so
for example with the current way that we
build this or the way that walk 1 and
mach 2 cylindrical sections were built
was in with basically plates so a series
of plates to create each some of the
section with Mach 3 and beyond we will
literally take the coil of steel from
the middle unspool it change the
curvature to a nine meter diameter and
do a single seam weld and it'll also be
thinner which makes it lighter and
cheaper
so the rate at which we will be building
ships is going to be quite quite crazy
by space standards I think we'll
probably have Mach 2 built within a
couple of months or or less and Mach 3
maybe three months that type of thing
Mach 4 four months maybe five months and
we would seek to go to orbit with
probably mark four or Mach five so we
would I mean this is gonna sound totally
nuts but I think we want to try to reach
over in less than six months
I mean provide provided at the rates the
rate of technical design improvement and
manufacturing improvement continues to
be exponential I think that is a you
know accurate to within a few months hi
Elon my name is Steve Clark I'm with the
Brownsville Herald back in September
2014 of the groundbreaking he said that
the first crewed interplanetary mission
could possibly leave yes can you hear me
could possibly leave from Boca Chica do
you think that's still the case yes is I
think definitely possible that the first
crewed mission on starship could leave
from Boca the we actually are internally
competing the Cape the Cape and and Boca
so I think I think both will both places
will to the best of my knowledge both
places will launch crewed missions so I
think it is extremely likely that we
will launch crewed missions from Boca
and there is a at least a 50% chance
that it is the first mission yeah thank
you very much
Halon Tim Dodd the everyday astronaut
how are you I was good good yeah they
have great questions online thanks you
have great answers so uh that belly flop
to tail down maneuver I know that's
something to see is that first one this
one right here you know 20 kilometers is
it going to come in that hot and do that
that flip that fast
yeah right here or is it gonna be out on
the drone ship like that's gonna it's
basically right where hopper took off
yeah that's basically where it's gonna
take off you know within yeah very close
to where it's just right over there you
know so yeah that maneuver that you see
you so it will execute now with no when
we get to I think maybe Mach 3 certainly
Mach 4 I think probably that will be a
good time to transition to hot hot gas
thrusters and from cold gas thrusters so
using essentially compressed nitrogen of
gas as the coal gas thruster is a pretty
low ISP you know sort of 67 if you're
very lucky but very close to the 60 with
with math ox thruster you can get
without really even trying hard a 300
ISP even if you just boom cool the walls
without even regen cooling if you if you
regen cool it 350 no problem 360 even so
you're talking about something that's
that then five or six times the mass
efficiency of the nitrogen thrusters
that are Mach 1 and if you have
thrusters of that efficiency then we
don't need to use use the Raptors to
correct the horizontal velocity because
right now it's actually winner doing the
Raptors fire
the Raptors kick it up kick it over but
but they're they're actually accelerate
the vehicle in the wrong direction then
they have to cook over correct and they
come back whereas if you have strong
enough thrust row so you could just
using the onboard maneuvering thrusters
without lighting the main engines you
just go kick it hard light the
land that be you know that's better yeah
and then are those pressure fed then
those yeah yeah yeah those we just
pressure fit a high-pressure gas a myth
ox and so you have a high pressure you
know ch4 what a high pressure o2 bottle
and then the great thing is like those
those they don't care what attitude
you're at you be at any attitude any you
know any G's any attitude it'll still
fire yeah yeah yeah hi Yvonne I'm Tim
Fernholz from quartz thanks so much for
taking the time okay two questions if I
may one just technical following up on
the presentation do useful stuff in
orbit you're gonna need the booster as
well as the starship right yes you would
get this Sasha okay it cannot get to
Earth orbit without the booster but
anywhere except Earth pretty much well
not counting Venus but like the Mars or
the moon the ship provided you have a
propellant plant on Mars or moon the
ship can easily get a single-stage from
the surface of the Moon all the way to
to surface of Earth without a booster so
it shows you how to eat like Earth has a
deep gravity well in a thick atmosphere
so but but definitely cannot I mean well
I mean if we if we really went crazy
lights you could probably do
single-stage-to-orbit non-reusable with
the ship but that would be pointless
Ilana I just wanted to ask NASA
Administrator Jim bridenstine had a
tweet last night about this presentation
concerned obf sigh about enthusiasm for
SpaceX as various programs I'm just
curious if you have any comment of
response to that yeah I mean we have for
sure that from a SpaceX resource
standpoint our resources are
overwhelmingly on Falcon and dragon that
is very clear but it was really quite a
small percentage of SpaceX that did this
starship you know less than 5% of the
company basically
the like the really hard part that
requires a lot of resources is
optimizing something past the initial
prototype phase and bringing it into
volume production so yeah to be clear
like the best majority of our resources
are on dragon or Falcon especially crew
dragon thank you
hey Ilana Chris Gephardt with NASA Space
Flight how do you guys envision keeping
the methane and oxygen inside the tanks
from boiling off in any significant
quantity during a multi-month
interplanetary trip to Mars and on a
more earth grounded question what's your
contamination mitigation strategy since
these things are being built outside and
the elements is not not in a factory
well these are pretty far in the
distance questions these questions are
relevant but in the end of future years
the keeping the the landing propellants
cold on the way to Mars is a lot easier
than it may seem because you can
essentially vacuum just like you'd keep
cryogenic propellants stored on earth
for long periods of time you vacuum
jacketed we would essentially have
header tanks that are bigger than these
header tanks and and invent them to to
vacuum so you just basically have a tank
inside a tank with multi-layer
insulation and and this way you can keep
things cryogenic for months no problem
it requires very little energy to you
don't even really need to worry about
boil off you could you could apply some
energy to cryo cool it but you don't
really need too tight you to have a tiny
amount of boil off you know in it in in
vacuum things are things are kind of
weird they're not like on earth because
you have no convective cooling really in
surgery so you you actually have the Sun
side of your rocket is very hot and then
the not Sun side of your rocket is at 3
degrees Kelvin so it's super cold so
you're just like keep your cold stuff on
the cold side and the hot stuff on the
hot side and it's pretty this is not a
problem to manage
you know the for the long-term stuff for
sort of what's called contamination Mars
you know they I think this this concern
first of all we will do everything we
can to mitigate it obviously and but at
the end of the day if you're going to
send people to Mars that's a pretty big
contaminant I know but I really don't
think that some earth-based bacterium is
gonna be able to migrate much through
Mars
the thing that makes Mars very difficult
is that it is both cold and has high
ultraviolet so if it was either cold or
ultraviolet you could evolve to deal
with it but the the cold slows down
metabolic processes and the and then
ultraviolet ray to the stretch of the
DNA so you colder shredded this is very
difficult for things to exist on the
surface of Mars and that's why we have
not found any traces of life on the
surface of Mars to date if there is any
life it'll be very deep underground and
I think very resilient yeah cool thank
you
it's also worth noting that over time
there have been meteors that they've
been chunks of Earth that have been
chipped off by meteors and chunks of
Mars have been chipped off from Mars and
Earth and Mars have actually exchanged
material many times over the last
several hundred million years
hey long it's Chris Davenport from the
Washington Post but I'm curious about
your vision for this area I mean when
you drive by and you see this it's
surreal
it's real yeah and but I know your
vision isn't maybe like a government
launch site like a Cape Canaveral but
what does this look like a private
operational commercial space board
yeah I mean it's it's you know I mean it
will definitely get fancier than it
currently is you know because the the
the reason it's not fancier is it's just
because it would have taken too long to
build the buildings so since it was
gonna take so long to build the
buildings we just built it outside yeah
this is like my new thing is a
management by rhyming if the schedules
long it's wrong and if it's tightest
right yeah it works I mean sr-71
you know fastest plane in history ever
you know it's also coolest plane ever
you know it had no anti-missile defenses
except one accelerates yeah zero they
try to shoot it down many times zero
successes what you think this area will
look like it's a ten years when you are
flying cruise oh my think will be like a
lot left more buildings and a lot more
stuff like way way more stuff than is
currently here as you can tell the wind
is really quite vigorous the like one of
the things that I think would be quite
important to have locally is propellant
production so trucking massive you know
thousands of tons of liquid oxygen to
the site it doesn't make a ton of sense
we should really produce the ox that the
liquid oxygen here and by the way that
it's we have gaseous oxygen in the
atmosphere so basically just need
electricity and oh I've word to mention
one of the things our time is the
propellant production on Mars will be
completely renewable because we will use
solar panels pull the co2 out of the
atmosphere Mars is a primarily co2
atmosphere get the h2o the water from
the ice Mars has a
the amount of ice you combine h2o and
co2 and you get ch4 and O 2 this is a
very long understood process of running
over ruthenium catalysts this is a
Sabatier process to create a ch4 no.2
out of co2 and h2o and that same system
that we developed for Mars will
long-term be used on earth so long-term
this is like a long term we will produce
the propellants for the rockets using
solar power and pull the co2 from
Earth's atmosphere use water combine
that into it to create ch4 and o2 on
earth and so the long-term outcome will
be quite sustainable and renewable for
Earth and Mars Geoff vows of space news
you spent a lot of time this summer
working with the FAA getting approval to
do a single star hopper fly at 150
metres now you're talking about flying a
much bigger vehicle to much higher
altitudes and ultimately flying to orbit
where are you within the FAA in terms of
getting approval for that and will those
flight Opportunities be able to coexist
with say the local residents around here
yeah I mean I've seen the FAA
administrator for space has been
excellent to work with very
forward-leaning really I would just like
to say thanks to the FAA for their
support
actually I mean really this you know
minimal delay is related to regulatory
activity and they've been really very
reasonable and so you know the sports
very much appreciated so I think the FAA
asks you know good questions and what
you want to make sure things are safe as
do we
and so we're gonna make sure that this
the risk to the public is extremely you
know vanishingly small
there was nothing basically so yeah it's
the same sort of thing that we've had to
deal with on Falcon 9
dragon and has gone very well you know
for the 17 years that SpaceX has been
around so so you know I think I feel
pretty optimistic about things I don't I
don't see any fundamental obstacles we
are working with the the residents of
Boca Chica Village because we think over
time it's going to be quite disruptive
to their tune to living in Boca Chica
Village because it
needing to get cleared for safety a lot
of times so I'd say probably not very
you know there would be just not very
comforting to the book chica village I
mean I think the actual but dangerous to
folks here villages is low but it's not
it's not tiny
so therefore when we want super tiny
risk so yeah probably have a time rather
to buy out the villages and we've made
an offer to that effect
yeah thank you via LAN it's a Tariq
Malik from space calm and I was curious
with the design update here if a hundred
person crew signs for base flights is
still kind of the target now and how
will the life support could you talk
about that is the wind is like howling
in my ear unfortunately sure yes with
the design update here I'm curious if
the 100 person crew size target is still
the main target for base crew flights
and how the life support system for that
is being developed for both the initial
test flights and then maybe for mr.
Mia's hours flight 2 and upcoming years
thank you
yeah I think you it's really I think you
could still do a hundred people like the
the the pressurized volume on the
starship is around a thousand cubic
meters so if you had a hundred people
you'd have ten cubic meters per person
which is you know and especially in like
a zero-g situation that's actually quite
a lot of room unlike a 1g situation you
you only get to use one surface really
live on one surface in a 1g situation
but in this you know zero
situation you can live on six surfaces
you know you can like all six sides of a
cube so it things away roomier then they
may seem and by the way a thousand cubic
meters I think is close to what the
Space Station pressurized volume is so
it's you know starship is like basically
like the launching space station
pressurized volume on every flight this
is quite a lot we can make it bigger if
it as neat as you yeah high-heeled on
Stephen Clark from a spaceflight now
thanks for taking our questions we see
the starship prototype here mark one you
talked a little bit about how you're
gonna build the super-heavy vehicle can
you update us a little bit more detail
about how that development is going
where exactly it'll be built and when we
might see it on the on a test stand or
on a pad sure yeah a good question so
the priority is to build at least two
starships at each site at Boka at the
ganda cape and then start building the
booster so we'll complete you know Mach
one through four before doing Mach one
of the booster and then we'll do you
know Mach one and walk two of the
boosters at the cape and and voco look
their main constraints on on launching
the booster is is its engines because
obviously booster has a lot of engines
so spooling up the raptor production
rate is extremely important to vital
obviously essential to completing the
booster doing the the tanks and the legs
and say the grid fins
bettors not a constraint like that we
can get done fast but we need i think we
would want to have at least probably
twenty four engines but i think really
at least thirty one engines
to launch so you add that up you've got
a lot of engines there you know we need
to put four four four four starships
need to well these these have just have
three Brock wanted to just have three
three Raptor engines Mach three and four
will have six so yeah this looks like a
lot of engines basically including
development engines from now through
through orbit we're probably done
hundreds rapture engines and our
production race right now is maybe one
every sort of eight to ten days
and but it should be one every couple of
days in a few months and then out to our
target is to get to a rapture engine
every day by q1 next year or sooner and
if I may when will we see people flying
on this vehicle into space well I think
we could potentially see people flying
next year you know if we if we get to
orbit in about six months then and we
have a remember this is designed to be a
reusable rocket so a reasonable booster
reusable ship so we can do many flights
to prove out the reliability very
quickly so whereas with an expendable
vehicle you have to build if you want to
do ten flights let's say to prove out
the viability of an expendable vehicle
your need to build and destroy ten
vehicles whereas we can do ten flights
you know it within basically a ten days
so when I say rapid reusability I mean
you know what you you can fly it's like
you can fly the boosts or
20 times a day you fly the ship three or
four times a day that's what I mean by
reusability and the only reason to ship
it takes more time than that is more
time than the booster is that you need a
couple of you need you know three or
four orbits to synchronize for the ship
so that it is over you know like don't
getting those complicated thing of
orbital dynamics and the rotation of the
earth relative to satellite but as
anyone who's like knows the space you
know the track of a satellite unless
it's an equatorial satellite is it's a
sinusoidal track on the earth unless
it's equatorial or sun-synchronous so so
it you know launching sort of due east
you have to kind of wait for the orbits
just the the ground paths to sync up
with the launch light and that's the
only reason it really takes like you
know maybe six hours or something like
that to sync up and land back at Boca or
the Cape you know one of the really
interesting interesting things to
contemplate is the total mass to orbit
capability of a large reusable system
where you have a significant fleet in
operation the if you've got something
like Sasha where you've got maybe 150
tons capable to orbit and the ship can
fly' is capable of say theoretically
flying four times a day but you know
they quote it like 75 percent uptime so
theoretical three times a day three or
sixty-five days a year so that's like
about a thousand flights a year for the
ship the booster can do a lot more than
that this is obviously max theoretical
and you but you know 150 tons that
service 150 thousand tons to open per
year per ship and if you've got say ten
ships you would have a hundred and your
one and a half million tons to orbit per
year 20 ships you've got three million
tons over two year I think the total
rest of world capacity if you take all
rockets on earth including Falcon the
total capacity to orbit I think is
around two to three hundred tons
currently total Earth capacity to orbit
is about two to three hundred tons if
all rockets launched at max rate so
we're talking about something that is
with with the fleet of starships a
thousand times more than all earth
capacity combined all all other rockets
combined would be 0.1% including ours
but you kind of need that if you're
gonna build a city on Mars so it's got
to be done
Elon highest bill Harwood with CBS News
I just wanted to follow up on a an
earlier question about life support
systems because that's not trivial and
obviously you're you're building a very
sophisticated piece of hardware are you
thinking about closed-loop regenerative
systems are you thinking about
developing these in-house or you looking
at designs that already exist on Space
Station for example and what are you
shooting for initially I know you're not
going to be launching a hundred people
on your first flight but what sort of a
crew complement can we expect on those
initial test flights and what how
sophisticated does that life-support
system need to be Thanks
yeah I think for sure you'd want to have
a regenerative life support system so
that just means you're recycling
everything you know that's for sure
important if you're on a several months
journey to Mars and then you you know on
the surface for 18 months
regenerative is a kind of a necessity so
III don't think it's actually super hard
to do that relative to the spacecraft
itself the life-support system is pretty
straightforward
yeah you're going to take - you know -
yeah it's pretty straightforward you
take out the water vapor and the co2 you
can read that back - OH - it's not not
super hard the the early flights of
starship would not have any people on
board it would just be in automatic mode
it would only be later flights that
would have people on board so I think
like the foot even the first place
tomorrow's we were to attend at least a
couple of ships have them just land
automatically before sending people yeah
take about two more questions
hyeyeon Erik burger with ARS technica I
would just argue the x-15 was the
coolest plane of all time and my
question I guess is you know we're not
really used to seeing Hardware build in
less than a year can you talk about the
timeline for this vehicle like when you
started fabricating it and how you went
so quickly on it thank you
yeah actually I'm not sure I think I cap
until October last year we were pursuing
a completely different design so it was
really I switched the design to steel I
think yeah proxy up maybe October last
year and there's like okay so what's the
fastest we can build a steel you know
ship in Texas
and there we got I think your bulletin
built it in about four months or
something maybe five months and then
this the ship I think we I'm not sure
exactly when we started loading it
perfect yeah but maybe about four months
ago that we started building the ship
maybe five so it's been four or five
months since we started building this
ship from nothing I think yeah something
like that and how did you go so fast
well I guess I have this mantra you
called if the schedules long it's wrong
if it's tight it's right yeah and just
basically just go recursive improvement
on schedule and say with feedback loop
did this make it go faster okay if it
didn't we need to fix it if the design
if the design is takes a long time to
build it to the wrong design this is the
fundamental thing over and over it's
like the tendency is to complicate
things and I have another thing which is
like the best part is no part the best
process is no process it weighs nothing
costs nothing can't go wrong so as
obvious as that sounds the best the best
part is no part like the my the the
thing I'm most impressed with in when I
have the design meetings at SpaceX is
what did you undesigned undesigning is
the best thing just delete it that's the
best thing yeah
hey Ilan Robin here from supercluster
calm my question is about potential fun
synergy between spacex and your other
projects one is there a concept for a
tesla Mars rover - are you gonna be
launching yeah is there a concept
already uh well actually yeah the
Tesla's will work on Mars you know the
if you can either there's a little you
can just drive them pretty much because
electric cars don't need oxygen they
don't need air so you can just drive
them around no problem
are you gonna bring a boring machine to
the Moon or Mars I think that would be a
good good idea me too
yeah because you could just like make
like as much room as you want
underground and and you protect it from
radiation and everything and I could
probably use the materials for building
and you need to find ice and dirt anyway
so why not yeah totally
Thanks Elon in it oh I don't believe you
about the aliens
I hope I hope I'm wrong I mean I hope
they're like well if they are how you
here I'm hope they're nice you know they
haven't killed us yet so it must be not
that bad all right any other questions
hi Ellen Martin Avenue from the SpaceX
subreddit we crowd sourced a few
questions it sounds like I only have
time for one but oh well I was wondering
could you elaborate on the number of
engines that will be used for the booze
back and entry burns on starship and
what the dry landing weight of the
super-heavy will be oh yeah so starship
wouldn't really if we're poor
there's the 20-kilometer thing which you
know it's mostly just gonna have three
engines you know but you only really
needs like these two of them to work at
any given point in time but but the ship
when it's an orbital operation will will
only need a tiny bit of impulse to
deorbit like you only is to read like a
very tight like less than 5% of the mass
of the vehicles needed to do but so you
just like really puff one of the engines
and the main thing is like trying to get
the control like how do you shut off the
thrust precisely it really precisely so
that you don't over or undershoot
your target and and then so yeah for the
booster the booster has seven engines
that gimbal and then the rest whether
it's a total of 31 or 37 are fixed the
the fixed engines would not be used for
boost back so the only the center 7
would be used for for boost back and
then I really want to try to avoid an
entry burn if at all possible that would
because I acted that that would now you
have to have a high the system has to be
capable of a very high Q entry in order
to avoid an entry burn but I think we
might be able to make the booster buff
enough that it you know it doesn't need
an entry burn hopefully so then it just
needs a landing burner yeah
all right great thanks everyone thanks
for coming after you tried it